By their Beatles favourites shall ye know them. Politicians have been arguing over which Fab Four classic drove them to become the well-balanced souls they are today.

Gordon Brown opts for All My Loving (“Tomorrow I'll miss you”, indeed). “This was my early favourite because it was the first I learnt to play on the piano when my parents sent me for lessons when I was young,” he told the Liverpool Daily Post. David Cameron, a “McCartney fan”, picks The Long and Winding Road. “The road he was thinking of was the B842 that runs down Kintyre to Campbelltown,” says Dave, who seems to be taking Wikipedia at face value. “It has a wonderful melody and emotion and pretty much sums up the life of the Leader of the Opposition.”

Nick Clegg enjoys the flashy A Day in the Life, which “still sounds innovative and radical”.

Restrained from picking Taxman, Alistair Darling is transported by Strawberry Fields Forever. “It reminds me of the 1960s at their best. In the words and music they are describing real life, unlike so many other songs of that time.” Psychedelia means nothing to our hairshirt Chancellor.

PAINTING THE BLUES FOR BIG PHIL

The Face: Olga Scolari

The biggest influence over Luiz Felipe Scolari, who arrives as Chelsea manager today, will not be Roman Abramovich, but Olga, Scolari's equally tough-minded wife.

They have been together for 35 years, and it was Mrs Scolari who urged “Big Phil” to include the midfielder Kaká in his 2002 Brazil World Cup squad.

Olga, 58, is an accomplished painter and a member of the San Diego Museum of Art's Guild of Artists. She left her job as a teacher to support her husband's ambitions.

Mrs Scolari agreed that he could take the £5.5million Chelsea job before retiring to Brazil.

Abramovich now has an expert adviser for his next foray into the art market.

POSTSCRIPT

— Who is Number Six? Hollywood star Jim Caviezel, whipping boy in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, will take the role of Patrick McGoohan in an ITV remake of The Prisoner. Ian McKellen will play Number Two, the sinister head of “The Village”. The 1967 classic will be updated to reflect contemporary concerns about “liberty, security and surveillance”. Sounds like David Davis would approve.

— Dolly Parton is setting up a British office to cope with the demand for her free books for children scheme. The Backwoods Barbie says: “With this exchange rate, if I had to keep shipping money from Tennessee to the UK I would have to change the name of Dollywood to Dollywas.”

— Christopher Hampton, screen writer of Atonement, told the ICA that Ian McEwan disapproves of the final scene: “He thinks it's too sentimental.”

— The Conservative-Home blog has wise advice for would-be Tory MPs. “Say nice things to the [office] staff, who will lose your CV or put it on the top of the pile. It's nauseating but [they] have so much power.”

— Amy Winehouse's claim, made at Glastonbury, that Blake Fielder-Civil, her husband, will be “out of jail in two weeks” looks optimistic. Legal eagles say that, after pleading to GBH and conspiring to pervert the course of justice, two years is a possibility.

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